ANC nepotism blamed for crisis

Police are battling to fight crime in South Africa because the ANC had appointed its own people who had no policing skills to positions of authority, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday.

The party's safety and security spokesperson, Dianne Kohler- Barnard, said the ANC's policy of deploying cadres in key government jobs had seen skilled security experts replaced by political appointees.

She claimed this lay at the heart of the problems in the police service.

She told journalists at a briefing at Parliament the government needed to address the problems immediately before the police service collapsed.

Kohler-Barnard said critical senior positions in the command chain needed to be filled, detective units beefed up and the backlog of samples at the forensic science laboratories tackled.

"At the heart of these problems is the ANC's disastrous cadre deployment policy, which has seen skilled security experts replaced by political appointees. This has triggered a managerial crisis in the police service which has filtered down throughout the service to its junior ranks," said Kohler-Barnard.

She said the police's command structure had been left in disarray with national police commissioner Jackie Selebi on special leave pending the finalisation of a corruption probe; two of five divisional commissioner posts vacant and another two divisional commissioners facing internal and criminal investigations.

Head of police legal services Lindiwe Mtimkulu was on leave for unspecified reasons, while protection and security services chief Mzondeki Tshabalala was facing charges of negligent and reckless driving.

Tshabalala's unit has been in the spotlight after a number of incidents involving VIPs' blue-light convoys and motorists.

It was reported this week that a bodyguard of Umsunduzi mayor Zanele Hlatshwayo allegedly spat in the face of a motorist on the N3 highway near Umbumbulu, KwaZulu-Natal.

Kohler-Barnard slammed suggestions by Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa that he would only release crime statistics annually.

She said this would disadvantage citizens by leaving them in the dark about the extent of crime.

"He justifies this on the basis that releasing the statistics before an election might politicise them," she said.

"The minister's decision not to release half-year crime statistics means that the most recent available statistics are 13 months out of date."

Another worrying factor, said Kohler-Barnard, was the growing number of firearms "lost" by police every year.

More than 14 000 police service firearms have gone missing since 2001.

Another critical area needing urgent attention was the increase in the number of missing dockets. Kohler-Barnard provided police figures that showed the number of dockets that go missing has risen steadily over the past six years.

The government needed a back-up system of scanning dockets to guard against being lost or stolen.

Backlogs at the country's forensic science laboratories contributed to the delay in the finalisation of criminal cases.

Kohler-Barnard said the backlog of 20 000 samples had a severe impact on the conviction rate.

"We have SAPS (members) blundering on crime scenes. I will use a phrase used by one private investigator that 'they (the police) rape crime scenes'," said the DA politician, suggesting that a solution for government would be to improve its retention policies to avoid experienced staff being poached by the private sector.